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Government to rename IIM Calcutta and IIM Shillong

The government is set to rename two Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). IIM Calcutta will be renamed IIM Kolkata, while former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s name will be dropped from IIM Shillong.

The IIM Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, mentions that the name of the existing IIM in Calcutta, registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 will change. The “name of the institute incorporated under this Act” will be “Indian Institute of Management Kolkata”, says the bill.

While that may be in keeping with the change in the official spelling, IIM Bangalore name is not about to change to IIM Bengaluru. While Calcutta changed to Kolkata in 2001, Bangalore changed to Bengaluru in 2014 to better refect local language usage.

Effectively, the Calcutta name change will also change its brand name from IIM-C to IIM-K. However, IIM Kozhikode is already referred as IIM-K.

Besides, the top three IIMs at Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta have commonly referred as ABC in the IIM community and industry for decades.

IIM Shillong is perhaps the first instance of a Gandhi family name being dropped from a leading educational institution. The IIM started operations in 2008 as the Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management Shillong.

However, the National Democratic Alliance government has removed former Congress Prime Ministers’ names from various government schemes.